


Own It

by pir8fancier



Series: Do I or Don't I? [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pir8fancier/pseuds/pir8fancier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part III of the "Do I or Don't I?" series. John tries and utterly fails to sabotage his relationship with Rodney.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Own It

John is pretty frigging shocked that the whatever he has with Rodney is still going strong. He'd walked through Rodney's door convinced this would be the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Rodney was horny, wanted a hand job, and realized that John actually had hands. It would be two months worth of hand jobs, and then it would all stop, with Rodney scalding himself in the shower to wash off the gay cooties. The only reason why John went to Rodney's quarters in response to Rodney's request was that after thinking it over, he didn't think there would be any serious ramifications when Rodney decided he didn't want to be gay any more. After dumping John's homo ass, Rodney would be embarrassed for about a month, but then, with that astonishing selfishness that defines so much of Rodney's behavior, he would just expect John to deal. And then he'd begin courting yet another woman with large breasts.

Didn't happen. Two years later they are still a _thing_ , and John doesn't, WTF?, ever see them not being a thing.

The lights out business continued for a solid month until John figured out that it wasn't that Rodney didn't want to see gay shit coming down. Nope, Rodney was embarrassed by his paunch. Rodney kept wearing tee-shirts and would only take them off when the room was pitch black; in fact, he even put up towels over the windows to block any possible slivers of light. Finally once John put two and two together--towels over windows and tee-shirts versus John's ass barely in the door before Rodney would be tearing at John's clothes and hissing, "Off, I want these off"--that John realized it had _nothing_ to do with sex and everything to do with Rodney's sad inferiority complex about his physique.

"Hey, I want to see you," John would insist, which Rodney would ignore, until one night John said, "Your dick is bigger than Ronon's, so chill about the lights."

John wasn't exactly sure if that was true. You didn't scope out another guy's package in the shower. That was a ticket to a busted jaw. But whatever. Rodney believed him and because, duh, men's sexual cues are visual, their sex life took off in directions John didn't even know were _possible_. On one level their sex life was jesus-christ-on-a-bicycle this is good, but on another level John really resented the sexual whoa, because you can put up with celibacy for a long time, but then once have sex, and good sex, then it's like HAHAHAHA!, you idiot! Did you actually think you were okay with this? Now, John not only wanted it, he _needed_ it. 

Not that he'd ever tried to rate himself in the sack, but if you were to use the ice cream analogy, John had never thought he was particularly vanilla. Well, maybe French vanilla studded with flecks of vanilla bean and topped with chocolate sauce. Wake-up call. He was not only vanilla, he was basically non-fat ice cream. Possibly ice milk with lots of freezer burn.

A salient portion of Rodney's genius was his curiosity. What if I did _this_? What if you did _that_? That kind of curiosity had you designing wormholes. John became Rodney's personal sexual Gumby. "Now twist like this." "How do you think _this_ will feel?" Most of the time it felt fucking amazing. And when it didn't, Rodney would sit back on his haunches and say, "But what about this?" And then John would come his fucking brains out.

John's emotional force-field, built up atom by atom over the years, was by this point pretty damn impregnable. But Rodney's lack of filters, his inability to dance an end run around John's personal pathologies, and his total social fail were, strangely enough, the ultimate weapons against John's formidable anti-intimacy armor. Rodney touched something in John that heretofore was untouchable.

So, of course, John tried numerous ways to fuck things up.

The best example was about a year ago when John said to Rodney, "Hey, you still find women attractive?" Rodney did the bugged-out-eyes-Sheppard-you-are-such-a-moron thing he did, and then had replied, "Don't be an idiot. Of course I do. Do you still find other men attractive?" John had to admit, yeah, it happened every now and then. "So, I'd say we're even-steven. My god," Rodney groused. "Look what sleeping with you has done. I'm now talking like a ten year old." Then Rodney had cuffed him on the side of the head as he swiped John's pudding.

John's classic pattern of sabotaging his relationships--set up a dynamic that would end up in ever-increasing fights--just didn't work with Rodney. Rodney would pull the rug out from under him by refusing to be defensive, or calling John on his shit, and/or defusing whatever stupid exchange they were having by stealing his jello or his pudding. Or by giving him a blowjob.

The very fact that John had done his own personal march of shame to Rodney's quarters told him this relationship was different, but John hadn't realized _how_ different. In all of his relationships with the exception of his mother, he'd been the one who was ultimately in power. He was the one who'd called the emotional shots. Stay or walk away. With Rodney, he'd walked to him and couldn't seem to walk away. 

Just about the time he'd convinced himself it'd gone on long enough, that it was getting too real, he'd think to himself, "I'm just going to pull away, slowly, taper off the sex. Then spend more time at the range and the gym. Yeah, it will be slow but sure." So he'd try to taper off the sex right about the time Rodney would discover some problem that _had_ to be solved, right there and _then_ , and John wouldn't see him for a week. Then Rodney would stumble into John's room at three in the morning, yawning and shuffling toward John's bed, only stopping to remove his shoes and pants before falling onto the mattress, and then he'd say something like: "God, I'm so tired even my teeth are exhausted. But I solved it. Oh. Are you happy to see me or what? Yes, it's been a while. Let me... God, that feels so good. Anyway, you know how Radek gets. Some hare-brained idea that has _no_ scientific basis whatsoever, well, perhaps a tad, and then I have to... Jesus, John. God, god, that's so... So... Ah."

Rodney would conk out, snoring and drooling on John's shoulder, and John would have semen all over his stomach and a smile on his face from the righteousness of his orgasm.

John had never reached for any thing or anyone except for flying and Rodney. John had always been the one who'd been reached for. And, sure, it seemed that Rodney was the one reaching out for him, making that ridiculously "Rodney-esque" proposal, but emotionally John was not only reaching for Rodney, he was grabbing with both hands and squeezing tight. Not that Rodney knew that. But John did. That walk from his quarters to Rodney's was torture. Each footstep saying to him, you're an idiot, he's not gay, what in the hell is the matter with you?, you're fucking up your career, he's a pain in the ass at the best of times, he's not gay, you've been doing pretty well on the celibate front for a while now so keep dealing, he's not gay, he's not gay, he's not gay. And you're gay. And you want this. And you're a fucking idiot.

Whether he was an idiot was still open to debate, but he couldn't exactly say that Rodney was gay or wasn't gay. He was, well, Rodney. John had come to the conclusion that it wasn't so much that Rodney was bi-sexual so much that he was John-sexual. John could live with that.

Then Rodney had a heart attack.

*******************************

John never had called their "thing" a relationship until he found himself in a waiting room outside the CCU of Walter Reed. Having an epiphany with his butt aching from sitting for hours on a plastic orange chair in a waiting room full of similarly angsted-out, worried people was a hell of wake-up call, but epiphanies choose their time and place. John had to name what this was and own it. And fight for it. No matter the consequences. That philosophy had served him well over the years--he'd maintained his personal integrity in a career that seemed, at times, calculated to destroy it--and he saw no need to alter course now. 

*******************************

They'd just come back from a budget meeting with a bunch of military and congressional types. Rodney had always based his budgets on the following rule of thumb: ask for 40% more than you need, and you get what you want plus 10%. Despite the current administration's alleged support of science, there was a mood in Washington these days that the military had far too much money in light of on-going budget woes; a little belt tightening was now in order. In fact, those very words were used.

"Belt tightening? _Belt-tightening_!!!! I cannot believe those morons. They can't even spell 'wormhole' never mind understand the concept behind it. I doubt any of those people at that hearing have more than an eighth-grade education. An _American_ eighth-grade education."

Rodney's scorn for the American education system was legendary. The fact that he got both PhDs at M.I.T. was immaterial.

"Pretty sure that a couple of those four-star generals have degrees from West Point." 

Rodney stopped his stomping down the corridors of Dulles on their way to the gate to give John one of his most impressive glares.

"You got 90% of what you asked for," John pointed out.

"That is _not_ the point! Next year it will be reduced again and yet again the following year, and pretty soon we'll be using candles to save on electricity."

John coughed out a very audible, "ZPM."

"Whose side are you on?" Rodney demanded. And then blinked twice, dropped the laptop he was carrying, put his hand up to his chest, and collapsed onto the floor.

*******************************

_To Be Continued_


End file.
